Most headline-grabbing advances in quantum mechanics today are experimental in nature: more qubits, entangled particles, fewer errors.
Often overlooked are the advances in the mathematics that underpins the behaviour of these quantum systems.
The walled Brauer algebra is an abstract but increasingly important mathematical structure that appears in quantum information theory whenever physicists study particles, symmetries and transformations involving permutations and partial transposition.
Work in this area inevitably leads to the question of how a system transforms when particles are permuted or when one part of a composite object is flipped (transposed) while the rest is left untouched. Collect all such operations together and you get the walled Brauer algebra. It plays an important role in the mathematical description of problems ranging from entanglement detection to advanced teleportation schemes.
The walled Brauer algebra (Credit: M. Horodecki, M. Studziński and M. Mozrzymas)
The problem is that this algebra is famously intricate. Until now, physicists have only been able to describe its structure using methods that do not fully align with the natural symmetries of the system, making calculations heavy and sometimes opaque.
The new work changes that. The authors have developed an iterative construction that builds the algebra piece by piece, revealing its architecture in a symmetry-compatible way. Instead of a tangled hierarchy, the algebra unfolds into independent components, each shaped by the action of two symmetric groups.
The result is not just a more elegant mathematical picture; it is also a new framework that can make symmetry-based analysis of complex quantum-information problems more systematic and transparent.
This matters now more than ever. Quantum technologies increasingly involve many-particle configurations where symmetry is both a feature and a challenge. Teleportation schemes that move quantum information without moving particles, algorithms that manipulate unknown quantum operations, and proposals for higher-order quantum processes all rely on understanding how transformations behave under symmetry.
By clarifying this structure, the new framework could help researchers analyse these settings more effectively and support the development of better-controlled entanglement- and teleportation-based protocols.
This property determines whether a quantum system can outperform even the fastest classical supercomputer. Until now, scientists could quantify magic in systems of qubits, but not in systems of bosons such as photons or hybrid devices of coupled bosons and spins, like those used in real quantum hardware.
In this new work, a team of researchers from Taiwan and Japan proposed the first unified way to measure magic in systems that combine both spins and bosons. These hybrid platforms appear everywhere from superconducting circuits to trapped ion quantum processors. However the quantum resources inside them have remained difficult to identify.
The team’s new framework uses the shape of a quantum state in phase space to define a family of magic entropies that apply cleanly to qubits, bosons and crucially, the interactions between them.
To test the idea, the researchers examined the Dicke model, a paradigmatic system in which many spins couple to a single light field. As the system approaches a superradiant phase transition (a dramatic collective reorganisation), the shared non-classical behaviour across both spins and photons (the hybrid magic) peaks at this transition. This provides another way to identify the critical point, alongside familiar tools such as entanglement. Another interesting result is that, in the finite systems studied here, the quantum magic in the spin sector increases sharply, while the bosonic magic saturates to a finite value. This contrast suggests that these measures capture different aspects of the quantum state.
The team also analysed how magic evolves dynamically in the Jaynes–Cummings model, where a single spin and a single photon exchange energy. As the two systems swap excitations, magic flows back and forth, and have different behaviours for bosonic and spin parts, providing a picture of how computational power migrates through a quantum device in real time.
As quantum computers grow more complex, scientists and engineers need reliable ways to diagnose which parts of their machines produce genuine quantum advantage. This new framework gives them a powerful tool to do just that, and it’s one that works not just for qubits, but for the hybrid architectures likely to define the next generation of quantum technologies.
Traces of an ancient river system In the Margin unit, strongly reflecting layers are dark in appearance and weakly reflecting lithologies appear as light. The projected radargram is shown with the HiRISE digital elevation model data and layers are traced (cyan dotted lines) from the subsurface to corresponding surficial topographic features. (Courtesy: NASA/JPL/UCLA/UiO/ETH Zurich)
A river delta may have been present on Mars as early as 4.2 billion years ago, which is much earlier than previously thought. This is the conclusion from a new study by researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, who have analysed ground-penetrating radar (GPR) data collected by the Mars 2020 Perseverance rover from the Jezero impact crater.
“The finding may also extend the period of flowing water and potential habitability for Jezero back further in time, says astrobiologist Emily Cardarelli, who led this research effort.
The surface of Mars carries many traces of a past watery climate, including ancient river channels, deltas, and paleolakes. Indeed, observations from space provide evidence for the existence of minerals possibly left behind as Mars’ atmosphere was gradually lost to space and its surface dried up.
Researchers are particularly interested in carbonate minerals because these preserve a record of the Red Planet’s ancient water thanks to its interactions with carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere at this time. How these minerals formed over the large scale in the Margin unit is unclear though.
Data collected from more than 35 metres underground
In the new work, Cardarelli and her colleagues in the Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences at UCLA analysed data collected by Perseverance’s Radar Imager for Mars Subsurface Experiment (RIMFAX) instrument. They focused on a sedimentary deposit known as the Margin unit, which is rich in magnesium carbonates and lies near a fluvial inlet to the Jezero impact crater in the Nili Fossae region near Syrtis Major. The researchers already knew that this region hosts features typical of a paleolake basin and river delta deposits.
RIMFAX acquired a continuous 6.1-km ground-penetrating radar (GPR) image along the Margin unit campaign path with soundings every 10 cm and the researchers analysed 78 traverses made between September 2023 and February 2024 over 250 sols (Martian days, which are about 40 min longer than Earth days). The instrument collected data from more than 35 m underground, which is 1.75 times deeper than previous measurements at the Jezero crater.
The researchers found that the Margin unit contains a well-preserved paleolandscape with distinct river and deltaic features. These, they say, could be the remnants of a meandering river, an alluvial fan or braided river. This environment could have developed before the Jezero Western Delta viewable from orbit as early as the Noachian epoch (around 4.2 to 3.7 billion years ago).
Jezero might have hosted a habitable ancient environment
From the stratigraphic features mapped by RIMFAX, Cardarelli and colleagues conclude that the Jezero crater might have hosted an aqueous, possibly habitable environment capable of preserving biosignatures. “RIMFAX confirms that the Margin unit is distinct from a geological region known as the Upper Fan, which was deposited earlier and different in composition as well as in physical area,” says Cardarelli. “Our work suggests that there is some continuity of formation between the Margin unit and the Upper Fan, with a repeated process in Jezero crater, but at completely separate formation and deposition times.”
Indeed, a body of water might once have fed Jezero crater, she tells Physics World, and deposited sedimentary layers of varying scales, similar in size and morphology to those observed in an area known as the Western Fan. “We suggest that this was once an extensive system that included the Margin unit, although it is now a buried remnant.”
This study, which is detailed in Science Advances, highlighted only some of the specific features found since the mission began. To date, Perseverance has traversed around 40 km and has moved out of Jezero and onto the crater’s rim and the researchers say they will continue publishing their analyses from both these areas.
“I am also excited about one day returning to the Neretva Vallis region where we have detected the most compelling potential biosignatures. These may have a biological origin, but require additional study before determining if they may be evidence of past microbial life,” says Cardarelli.
Following their work, BASE researchers had left the lorry in the main CERN car park but found it had vanished the following morning. The antiprotons were contained in a cryogentically-cooled Penning trap composed of gold-plated cylindrical electrode stacks made from oxygen-free copper surrounded by a superconducting magnet bore.
Initial suspicion was that the lorry might have been stolen by visiting US researchers from Fermilab, but a review of CCTV footage by CERN scientist Vittoria Vetra suggests it had been left overnight with the handbrake off.
I should have paid more attention. But I was just reaching into my bag to get my baguette lunch.
CERN lorry driver Herwig Chopper
Vetra discovered that following the test run, the driver – Herwig Chopper – had hit a pine marten dashing across the car park. “I should have paid more attention,” admitted Chopper. “But I was just reaching into my bag to get my baguette lunch”.
The driver swiftly went to get help for the stricken marten, with the suspicion being that in the rush he accidently left the truck’s handbrake off.
Footage taken later in the day revealed that the antiproton lorry began moving slowly forwards towards an identical vehicle containing protons, which had been used in 2024 to successfully transport protons across the lab’s campus.
Moments later, the two trucks collided and annihilated in a brilliant flash of light that dazzled the CCTV camera.
The light was so intense that it was even picked up at CERN’s Antiproton Proton RecoIL-1 (APRIL-1) experiment, which lies just a few hundred metres away.
Initial analysis by experiment head Silvano Bentivoglio suggests that the significant centre-of-mass energy of the collision could have produced two new particles, which the team have dubbed an “angelon” and a “demon”.
This new discovery opens up a new branch of particle physics to probe the full collision spectrum of trucks containing matter and antimatter.
TV physicist Brian Cox
“This new discovery opens up a new branch of particle physics to probe the full collision spectrum of trucks containing matter and antimatter,” says TV particle physicist Brian Cox. “Who knows what we might find and it could also be possible to collide other methods of transportation to search for new forces.”
There are now calls for CERN to build the 91 km Future Truck Collider in an underground tunnel with the Vatican and other private sponsors already coming forward with significant funding.
What happens when hard science fiction collides with big-budget cinema? The latest episode of Physics World Stories delves into the ideas within Project Hail Mary – a new film about a science teacher (portrayed by Ryan Gosling) who finds himself alone on a spacecraft with the job of saving humanity from a star-dimming threat.
Host Andrew Glester talks to science-fiction author Andy Weir, whose 2021 novel inspired the production. Weir, also known for The Martian and Artemis – both adapted for the screen – has built a reputation for scientific rigour, sometimes spending days perfecting calculations for the smallest plot details. In the interview, he reflects on how his writing has evolved over time, with a growing focus on character development alongside the hardcore science.
Also in the episode is astrophysicist and science communicator Becky Smethurst, who gives her take on the film’s science. From the treatment of relativity to its refreshingly plausible take on alien life, Smethurst loves how Project Hail Mary avoids many familiar sci-fi clichés. She also shares some of her favourite recent science fiction.
Smethurst, who runs the popular YouTube channel Dr Becky, recently released a series about Project Hail Mary. It’s well worth checking out the entertaining interviews with Weir, Gosling and directors Phil Lord and Christopher Miller – all grappling with the challenge of bringing complex physics to the screen.
Physicists who go into politics are a rare breed. Most famously there was Angela Merkel, who was chancellor of Germany for 16 years. Climate physicist Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo was elected Mexican president in a landslide win in 2024. Alok Sharma, meanwhile, was business secretary in the UK government and president of the COP-26 climate summit.
But Dave Robertson is even more unusual. Having originally studied physics at the University of Liverpool in the UK, he worked as a physics teacher in Birmingham for almost a decade. After spells in the trade-union movement and local politics, Robertson has been the Labour Member of Parliament (MP) for Lichfield, Burntwood and the Villages since 2024.
He’s not the only physicist currently serving as an MP. Others include Layla Moran – another former physics teacher – who’s been Liberal Democrat MP for Oxford West and Abingdon since 2017. There’s also shadow home secretary Chris Philp, who’s been Conservative MP for Croydon South since 2015.
But Robertson is the only physics-teacher-turned-MP in the current Labour government, which came to power at the 2024 general election. It won a 174-seat landslide majority, though Robertson’s own victory was wafer-thin. He squeaked home by just 810 votes over his Conservative rival Michael Fabricant, who had been Lichfield’s MP for more than 25 years.
In an interview with Physics World, Robertson admits he had little idea of what the job of MP would involve (see box). Describing the British parliament as “a truly bonkers and bizarre workplace”, he divides his time between Lichfield and London. “I try to do four days in my constituency a week and four days in parliament. That doesn’t add up, but if can split my Mondays, I can just about make it work.”
Dave Robertson MP: what happened after I got elected
Dave Robertson recalls the immediate aftermath of his victory in the UK general election on Thursday 4 July 2024.
When you win an election, they give you this envelope. I was expecting a proper, thick A4 envelope, but all they gave me was a single sheet of A4 paper folded in half. It was 4.30 in the morning, I’d had no sleep and I’d been on my feet since 7 a.m. or something stupid. And I thought “I’m not opening this now. I’m going to take it home.”
When I opened it in the morning, it basically said “Congratulations, phone this number.” So I rang and someone said “Oh, when are you coming down to parliament?” And my reaction was “I thought you’d tell me that!” In the end, I went down on the Sunday after the election and I remember walking into Westminster Hall for the first time with the person who was showing me round and she said, “So when was the last time you were in parliament?”
As I put my hand on the door, I had to admit I’d never been in the building before: it was literally the first time I’d ever been there. And it’s nothing like I expected. It is a truly bonkers and truly bizarre workplace. It’s unique and so different to everything else. That comes with its frustrations, but it is also an absolute privilege to be involved – and long may it continue.
Into the classroom
Brought up in Lichfield, Robertson began his physics degree at Liverpool in 2004. Saying he “loved every second” of his time there, Robertson particularly enjoyed nuclear physics. But it was a science-communication course, which Robertson admits he only took because he thought it would be easy marks, that made him realize how much he liked taking complicated concepts and explaining them to non-experts.
After graduating in 2007 and taking a year off, Robertson returned to the Midlands to do a teacher-training degree at the University of Birmingham. The course was largely practical, with Robertson spending most of his time getting hands-on teaching experience at various schools in Birmingham, including one – Great Barr School – that he ended up working at.
Roberston spent seven years as a physics teacher at Great Barr, which was then one of the largest secondary schools in the UK. With about 2500 pupils, it had as many as 16 classes in each year group, from age 11 to 16. Great Barr was also able to offer physics to 17 and 18 year olds who stayed on to do A-levels. “We’d always have one physics group or occasionally two in year 12.”
Rather than just focusing on the syllabus, Robertson would try to make his lessons “loud and engaging” to emphasize the excitement and sheer bizarreness of physics. Claiming he has good control of his voice, Robertson says he would also “put on accents and do silly voices” to keep pupils entertained.
He particularly enjoyed teaching a course called “Science in the news”, where pupils would look into the impact of a particular topic in the syllabus on the wider world. “That was wonderful,” Robertson recalls. “It was effectively a literature review, which let us teach a lot of the skills that we want to see kids developing when they’re learning sciences. It was fascinating.”
Not all pupils enjoyed physics. “For some kids, physics wasn’t their thing – it’s not what drove them,” he says. But he regarded it as “an absolute privilege” to teach students who were engaged with the subject, especially those who went on to study physics at university. One ex-pupil even contacted Robertson after he became an MP to say she’d just passed her PhD. “She’d dropped a note into her thesis thanking Mr Robertson for being an inspiring physics teacher.”
Political moves
Robertson’s time at Great Barr came to an end in 2016 when the school was making job cuts and he accepted voluntary redundancy. After doing supply teaching for about a year, he got wind of a post at the NASUWT teachers’ trade union, which he’d been school rep for at Great Barr. “It was one of those jobs I’d have regretted if I didn’t apply for it,” he says.
It was while working for the NASUWT that Robertson got involved in local politics. He joined the Labour Party and in 2019 was elected to Lichfield District Council, which was then run by the Conservative Party. He also stood in that year’s UK general election, but was beaten by Michael Fabricant, losing by more than 23,000 votes. “I don’t talk about that result,” Robertson jokes.
Heart of the country Dave Robertson was elected as Labour Member of Parliament for the Staffordshire seat of Lichfield, Burntwood and the Villages at the 2024 UK general election, beating the sitting Conservative MP Michael Fabricant by just 810 votes. The former physics teacher serves a semi-rural constituency centred on the cathedral city of Lichfield (pictured). Lying about 30 km north of Birmingham, the constituency also includes farmland, villages and the town of Burntwood. (Courtesy: iStock/Nicholas E Jones)
Robertson is now one of more than 400 Labour MPs and spends most of his time on local Lichfield matters. “My number one focus is very much what’s going on in my constituency, and that will always be the case,” he says. “But I’m very fortunate to be one of a very small number of parliamentarians who’ve got a science background, let alone a physics background.”
That interest saw Robertson host an exhibition in the Houses of Parliament, organized by the Institute of Physics (IOP), in June 2025 to support the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology (IYQ). “Every MP and member of the Lords would have been able to walk past and see that it was the IYQ,” he says. The exhibition was, for him, a great opportunity “to show decision-makers that the UK is one of the world leaders in quantum”.
That month Robertson also hosted a hands-on display of quantum technology for MPs and members of the House of Lords, again organized by the IOP. At the end of 2025 he sponsored another parliamentary reception, this time for physics-based companies that had won IOP Business Awards. “The event was absolutely wonderful,” says Robertson. “Seeing some of the cutting-edge science from companies on show was astonishing.”
Robertson’s focus on science extends to his membership of various cross-party parliamentary groups, including ones about nuclear energy and space. He is also chair of a new group he has set up devoted to quantum science and technology. As a backbench MP, Robertson cannot dictate or implement policy, but he says such groups “can help build up a critical mass of interest in parliament to drive an agenda forwards”.
Spreading the word Dave Robertson (left) at an Institute of Physics event that he sponsored at the Palace of Westminster in June 2025 to inform parliamentarians, including fellow MP Steve Yemm (right), of the commercial applications of quantum science. The event formed part of the International Year of Quantum Science and Technology. (Courtesy: Barry Willis Photography)
With his background in teaching, Robertson is also keen to highlight the UK-wide shortage of physics teachers. While at Great Barr School – now rebranded as Fortis Academy – he was lucky. “I remember having a physics group meeting,” he says, “where there were six of us around the table and thinking ‘This is more [physics teachers] than most cities have’.”
As a 2025 IOP report pointed out, a quarter of state schools in England have no specialist physics teachers. In fact, more than half of physics lessons for 14–16 year olds are taught by teachers who never studied a physics-related subject beyond the age of 18. Despite some improvement, only 31% of the government’s target number of physics teachers have been recruited, while 44% of new physics teachers quit within five years.
It’s the responsibility of me and other MPs with a scientific background to spark an interest in physics
Dave Robertson MP
Robertson admits that getting the lack of physics teachers on the radar is an uphill battle. “There are 650 MPs but have they all thought about the importance of getting more physics teachers in the classroom? Probably not, if I’m honest. That’s why it’s the responsibility of me and other MPs with a scientific background to spark an interest in physics and unearth the next Paul Dirac or Isaac Newton.”
Robertson would also like to get on the influential science innovation and technology select committee to spread the message about the importance of physics. But he is wary of spending too much time in parliament with other MPs with a scientific background. “It’s more helpful if all of us have tentacles that spread out into other groups and parties and sections of parliament.”
Spreading the message
For the wider physics community, Robertson believes that physicists need to speak out more strongly about how they can tackle many of the world’s problems, notably climate change. “It’s the biggest issue at the moment and a lot of the solutions are going to come from physics,” he says. “Getting more physicists engaged with decision-makers will not only be good for the future of the economy but ultimately for the future of the planet.”
As for Robertson’s own future, he knows that a career in politics is precarious. Voters rarely hold politicians in high regard and will often boot them out on a whim. It’s therefore hard for any MP to have a predictable career path or plan too far ahead. Robertson himself admits to having “no big aspirations” to be a cabinet minister, which is perhaps just as well given that his majority at the last election was so thin.
With the next general election not due to take place until 2029, Robertson is for now focusing squarely on his role as a backbench constituency MP. “The job I have is just about the most wonderful in the world,” he says. “I want to keep doing it because there’s some wonderful things I can do for my community, whether it’s physics, quantum or football.” But if Robertson did get kicked out, at least he can go back into the classroom.
“Rumour has it, we could do with a few more physics teachers.”
Physicists at ETH Zurich in Switzerland have produced magnetic fields as high as 40 T in a superconducting coil that has a bore diameter of just 3.1 mm. Until now, creating such intense fields required large and expensive facilities and tens of megawatts of power. The new miniaturized structure requires a few thousand times less power than larger magnets and it could help bring ultrastrong benchtop magnets closer to reality.
“All previous 40 T class magnets have been metres in size, weigh more than six tons, and require about 20 MW of power to operate,” says Alexander Barnes, who led the research effort. “Our miniature magnet can also generate a 40 T magnetic field, but it is small enough to fit in the palm of your hand and requires a few watts or less to operate.”
Such a device could be extremely useful for scientists who use strong magnets in their research, he adds. “Rather than having to travel to the few locations in the world that have the resources and space to house a strong magnetic field, with this technology scientists in the future could have access to these magnets in their own laboratory.”
Making the magnet tiny
Barnes and his colleagues, who are nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopists, came up with the idea for their new magnet by asking themselves a simple question: “what do we need to put inside it in our experiments?” The answer was: only the sample and an NMR detection coil.
“So, instead of making magnets expensive and big enough to house all different kinds of equipment, we decided to make the magnet tiny – and just big enough to be able to fit inside it what we need to fit inside it,” says Barnes. In this way, any bulky components can be placed outside the magnet and only the essential elements within the high-field region inside it.
“Think about the right-hand rule and the Biot-Savart law we all learn in first year physics,” he explains. “This law tells us the more electrons moving in a circle, the higher the magnetic field. And the more electrons moving in a circle in a smaller volume close to the sample also means a higher magnetic field. This is all we did – we tried to maximize the electrons moving in a circle near our sample.”
High-temperature superconducting tapes
Strong magnets are needed in a host of research and technology areas, from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and particle accelerators to NMR spectroscopy. Magnetic fields greater than 40 T can be produced using high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tapes. These structures can also be wound together to increase their already very high critical current even further, something that allows the resulting coils to reach higher magnetic fields. A famous example, Barnes reminds us, is the world-record 45.5 T steady-state magnet, which uses a HTS coil as an insert within a resistive background magnet. The problem, however, is that these high-field hybrid magnets are huge and require a lot of power.
Barnes’ team says it might now have overcome this issue with its two compact HTS magnets wound with a conducting tape coated with the superconducting ceramic REBCO. The first magnet, composed of two pancake coils, produces a magnetic field of 38 T and the second, composed of four (quad) pancake coils, a field of 42 T. The researchers say they used a specialized winding technique combined with soldering to make sure there was a jointless connection between the pancake coils at a winding diameter of 3.5 mm.
The strong magnetic fields of the coils stem from the high current-carrying ability of REBCO and the extremely small magnet bore diameter of 3.1 mm. “These magnets reach current densities of 2257 and 1880 Amm−2 at peak currents of 1246 and 1038 A, respectively,” says Barnes, “and despite the much higher current density, they consume a few thousand times less power and require a coil volume over 1000 times smaller than that of the 45.5 T hybrid magnet.”
“Amazing” materials
He says he imagines a “bright future” where there are hundreds and thousands of benchtop magnets capable of 50 T and more, all over the world in academia and industry. These magnets can be used for NMR and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectroscopy, but also quantum computers and other applications. For instance, the ETH Zurich team is working on a project that uses these magnets to build miniature gyrotrons, which are microwave generators. “We have plans to use such devices for spectroscopy, but also for nuclear fusion heating and even vaporizing holes deep in the Earth to extract geothermal energy,” Barnes tells Physics World.
It will not all be plain sailing, however, say the researchers. One of the main challenges in this work, which is detailed in Science Advances, is to avoid damaging the REBCO-coated tapes. These tapes are “amazing” materials, says Barnes. They are a single crystal of rare-earth barium copper oxide and are more than 100 m long, but the problem is that they are subject to mechanical strain. If this strain exceeds a certain, critical threshold, then the superconducting layer can crack, leading to reduced current-carrying capacity as the structure’s resistance increases.
The researchers say they are now busy working on increasing the magnetic fields – they are targeting 50 T soon – and performing NMR inside their existing coils. “ResonX, the commercial partner on this study, is also actively commercializing these magnets,” reveals Barnes.
Robots tend to move things physically, using arms or other appendages. But what if robots could move objects without physically touching them? Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, the University of Michigan and Cornell University have developed robotic swarms that can manipulate objects using only water, by inducing a fluidic torque.
Strong viscous interactions exist in microscale systems, which can be used to generate fluid flows that actuate passive objects. In their previous research, the researchers found that this manipulation can be influenced by the number of microrobots, the spin rate of microrobots and the position of the microrobots relative to the object. This latest work, published in Science Advances, has gone one step further, demonstrating that a magnetic robot swarm can assemble, transport and reorganize objects that are many times larger than the microrobots themselves.
“This study is the third in a series of papers where our team explores how microscale robot swarms can coordinate using simple global control signals,” says Kirstin Petersen of Cornell University, “Rather than controlling each robot individually, we broadcast the same signal to the entire group and rely on the robots’ interactions with each other and with their environment to produce different collective behaviours. Here, we showed that those interactions could also be used to manipulate external structures through the fluid flows generated by the swarm”.
The robots are microdisks with diameters of about 300 µm and because they are magnetic, they can be rotated using an externally applied magnetic field. When each individual microrobot spins, it drags the fluid around it, which generates a force in the liquid. While this force is small for an individual robot, combining hundreds of robots together that spin in unison (and/or increasing the spin speed of the robots) creates a much larger flow force in the water – generating a high enough torque to move objects.
“The most exciting result is that the robot collective can use the fluidic torque it generates to manipulate structures much larger than the robots themselves, without physical contact. It suggests that you could add actuation to otherwise passive objects simply by introducing microrobots in the surrounding fluid,” Petersen tells Physics World.
To demonstrate this approach, the researchers positioned the microrobots inside and outside of concentric floating ring structures, and used the number of robots, their positions and spin speeds to act as a form of control for moving objects. They found that the robots could spread out and surround the object, rotating it in the process, or they could crawl around the edges of an object, allowing them to reorganize objects. The ability to change these parameters and obtain different torques provided a tuneable and programmable way of using the microrobot swarms.
The researchers extended the principles to mechanical systems, using the microrobot to turn miniature gear trains (after turning the first gear, the other gears moved by conventional mechanical contact). They also rotated 3D floating objects that were 45,000 times the mass of an individual robot. Here, placing the robots on top of the object generated sufficient torque to rotate it, despite the mass difference.
The team also found that the microrobot swarm could dynamically assemble objects using coordinated fluid flows, in which the robots switched between their rotational function and crawling ability to move objects along a surface. This adaptive behaviour not only allowed the manipulation of objects, but also their reorganization – including expelling, dispersing and aggregating objects – based on the environment and task requirements.
The introduction of these small robots into fluids essentially turns the fluid from a passive medium into a small-scale motor. For applications where there is a risk of structural damage from mechanical manipulation, contactless manipulation could be highly beneficial. For example, this type of mechanism could be useful in microscale manufacturing and biomedical engineering, particularly for miniature device assembly, biological matter transport and targeted manipulation within the human body.
When asked about what’s next for this research, Petersen tells Physics World that “the other authors are focusing specifically on innovating microrobots, whereas my lab is studying the broader question of how collectives coordinate through their shared environment while keeping individual agents simple. We are exploring natural and engineered fluid-coupled swarms across a wide range of size scales”.
A couple of months ago I wrote about whether it’s possible to teach the art of entrepreneurship or if it’s a skill that’s innate to individuals. My article led to some invaluable feedback, notably from one reader who said that, yes, of course it can be taught. Not, they said, from formal lectures but mainly through mentoring by people who’ve learned the art of entrepreneurship themselves.
That idea got me thinking about the wider benefit of “giving back” one’s experience to others who could gain from that wisdom. All professional scientists and engineers will have benefited at one time or another from the generous guidance of other people – be they teachers, lecturers, or work colleagues. So perhaps we should think about how we can do the same.
The value of a professional interaction, however small, should not be overlooked
It’s easy to imagine our lives are so inconsequential that we have nothing to teach – and even if we do have something to say, we certainly haven’t got the time to tell others about it. But the value of a professional interaction, however small, should not be overlooked. A timely moment at any career stage can make all the difference to an individual’s professional impact and future success. The scope of opportunity for giving back is broad.
Volunteering and internships
In my experience, local schools are always grateful for career guidance from professionals. Staff at my company, for example, often give career talks at their children’s schools. We take part in events such as assemblies, career evenings or careers weeks and we are currently keen to provide work experience for 16- and 17-year-olds in year 12. If we go ahead, I am sure pupils will be eager to snap opportunities up.
I have also seen the benefit of scientists and engineers developing videos, workbooks and other materials for primary-school children to learn about concepts in science and technology. It is important to make an impact at the earliest possible stage, which is where the talent pipeline starts. Once students are in their teens and have made their subject choices, it becomes hard – if not impossible – to influence them.
Internships are another great way of giving back. For the last eight years, I have been running a data-science internship programme at GE – and I just wish I’d started it sooner. Initially, we offered summer-long placements, but after a year we added year-long roles to the mix. I will be honest, colleagues were hugely sceptical about how much value these roles would bring, but their worry proved unfounded.
The vast majority of our interns have been extremely productive under our guidance and, after finishing, have gone on to secure graduate positions within GE or other tech firms. It’s vital, however, that interns are properly supported. As well as being given comprehensive induction and training, interns must be part of an established project team, whose members are always on hand to give guidance, answer questions, and provide the interns with clear tasks and goals.
It’s also important to set expectations of professionalism when at work. We are fortunate in GE that interns are taken on as regular employees and so have access to a wide range of employee and company benefits. Interns therefore find it easier to feel part of the company and adopt its ethos. Remember too, that the benefits work both ways. Interns bring you new perspectives and fresh ideas, while also keeping the rest of the team stimulated.
Professional societies and professorships
Being a member of a professional body is also a great way to give back to the community. The Institute of Physics (IOP), for example, has an active volunteer community, along with special interest groups and regional and national branches that are all run by member volunteers, with help from IOP staff. Becoming an IOP volunteer also gives you the chance to influence and help shape the physics community.
By meeting like-minded colleagues, you can build your network and give back to the community at the same time
You could, for example, get involved with running lectures, seminars, webinars and career outreach events. By meeting like-minded colleagues, you can build your network and give back to the community at the same time. There are some great examples, notably Deborah Phelps, a physicist in engineering who ended up launching the IOP’s girl-guiding badge.
For more experienced industrialists, another way to give back is to become a visiting professor. Being fortunate enough to hold such a position myself, they let you go back to university and share your knowledge and experience with current students. It’s invaluable for universities too, allowing students to learn what real-life careers look like and what skills they might need beyond the technical knowledge gained during a degree.
Visiting professorships tend to be awarded by directly by universities. But competitive awards exist too. The Royal Academy of Engineering, for example, runs a scheme that brings engineers, entrepreneurs, consultants and other industry insiders into UK universities to boost undergraduate engineering education. Covering areas that would appeal to physicists, such as energy, materials and electronics, the scheme lets experts deliver face-to-face teaching, mentoring and curriculum development for three years.
The Royal Society, meanwhile, runs an entrepreneur-in-residence scheme that’s been taken up by people like Fiona Riddich, who originally studied maths and physics before joining the energy industry. She’s mentored students at the University of Edinburgh and developed a project called Energy@Edinburgh to raise awareness of researchers’ work, promote interdisciplinary exchange, grow staff understanding of the energy market, and encourage innovation and translation of research.
I have only scratched the surface of what can be done for the good of our scientific and engineering community, but there is plenty of opportunity and few, if any, barriers to entry. I can’t emphasise enough the importance of doing this, especially for growing our pipeline of technical breakthroughs and developing talented people for the future.
My challenge to you is to tell your colleagues what you’re already doing to “give back” – and why. And if you’re doing nothing to give back, now is the perfect time to get started.
The amount of moisture in soil – and the way this moisture is distributed – combined with wind patterns in the lowest few kilometres of the atmosphere can influence where thunderstorms begin and how they develop. This new finding, from researchers at the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH) could help in the development of new early warning systems for such events, which are increasing worldwide and becoming more intense and dangerous as the climate warms.
Thunderstorms can develop quickly on hot afternoons, sometimes in less than half an hour of clouds building up, but predicting where they originate can be difficult.
A team of researchers led by meteorologist Christopher Taylor has now discovered that patches of dry soil 10–50 km across can combine with the wind field and affect how quickly convective storm clouds (cumulonimbus) form and grow.
“We already knew that differences in wind speed and direction with height (the ‘vertical wind shear’) in the atmosphere are critical ingredients for severe storm development, whilst gradients in land surface heating across the landscape can induce weak winds near the ground,” explains Taylor. “These two elements are usually studied separately, but we put them together and found that convective clouds grow very rapidly when the winds that steer them, some 3–4 km above the ground, oppose local surface-generated winds near the ground.”
This combination, he says, effectively increases the supply of moist, buoyant air into a cloud, accelerating the updraughts responsible for lightning and heavy rain.
“Storm initiations are clearly favoured in specific locations”
The result, he explains, challenges conventional thinking that over flat terrain, where cumulonimbus first develop, is essentially random. “In fact, under the conditions we studied – across sub-Saharan Africa – storm initiations are clearly favoured in specific locations, based on a combination of soil and wind conditions on that day.”
The work, which is detailed in Nature, could help in the development of more localized storm forecasting, he says, particularly in tropical areas where soil moisture gradients and wind shear are strong and can lead to flash flooding, lightning and strong winds.
The UKCEH team obtained its result by studying satellite images of 2.2 million afternoon storms in 2004–2024. They were able to obtain high-resolution data from the images and so observe fine-scale details of the wetness of soils.
The principle they have identified would be applicable to predicting thunderstorm formation in other parts of the world, such as Asia, the Americas, Australia and Europe – and not just the worst-hit tropical regions in Africa.
Ground-based measurement networks are scarce in Africa
Taylor and colleagues say they have been working with meteorological services in Africa for the last few years and contributing to international efforts to provide early warning systems for severe storms. Convective storms can be particularly damaging in built-up urban areas with intense rainfall damaging infrastructures such as roads and sanitation systems. “Unlike in the UK, where ground-based measurement networks are the backbone of weather forecasting, they are scarce in Africa and there are only a handful of meteorological radars here, explains Taylor. “We therefore had to rely on satellite data, which provide good quality information on some aspects of the coupled land-atmosphere system – notably the temperature (and therefore the height) of clouds and estimates of moisture in the top few centimetres of the soil.”
From this information, the researchers inferred how soil moisture affects evapotranspiration and atmospheric heating, how pressure gradients created by these heating patterns affect winds locally and, finally, how these inferred local winds interact with growing convective clouds.
The insights gleaned from this study could help improve the accuracy of short-term weather forecasts by providing a better indication of where storms are likely to appear within a region, Taylor says. “Just how much more skilful a forecast will be is an open question, but we have good reason to believe that in parts of Africa it could provide a big advance. In general, weather forecasting is a rapidly evolving field thanks to AI, and so the translation from research finding to application could be rapid.”
The researchers say they are now starting to look at how weather forecast models depict the processes described in their work. “Early indications suggest that models solving physical equations on a fine enough grid (of around 4 km) can capture the relationships between soil moisture, wind shear and cloud growth, but operational weather forecast models will require more accurate information on spatial variations of soil moisture to produce better forecasts,” says Taylor.
“We are also looking at how predictive models based on deep learning can exploit the new knowledge to provide forecasters with early indications of where storms may appear later in the day,” he reveals.
